The stunning new routine Clipper, in which a signed card appears folded inside a money clip around a bundle of banknotes, was snapped up immediately by the leading professional card magician in Britain today, MICHAEL VINCENT.

The routine still being finalised in marketing terms for limited release (only one hundred will be sold to maintain exclusivitely)) was seen in performance at a private close up show where Vincent was appearing and he immediately said “Let me have that now, ahead of the launch”

He explained that it exactly filled a highlight in one of his noted routines that have made him the best known professional card man in the business. With a busy programme of private shows, teaching in his academy, demonstrations, tv appearances, authoring new books and invitations to overseas countries by national institutions. He’s just returned from his second tour of China.

He said “John Derris has come up with one of the cleanest and most natural handlings of the concept of the revelation of a selected card, folded and discovered in a most unlikely place. It’s marvellous and goes into my professional programme immediately.”

Clipper will be available privately from John Derris following magazine reviews currently being published.

No boxes. No flaps. Just a signed card, a banknote and you. So
simple that anyone can now perform this hitherto difficult effect,
even the secret folding – -the dreaded Mercury card fold now almost automatic. For the true close-up magician this really is the ultimate effect that doesn’t look like a trick box from a magic
shop. Pure, uncluttered, magic

A banknote in a money clip is laid prominently on the table. A card is selected and signed on its face. Shuffled into the pack by the
spectator and the magician, the cards are dealt and the selected card has disappeared.

The spectator turns the banknote over and there is a folded card tightly wedged under the money clip. Without touching the card
the magician drops everything into the spectator’s hands who
announces it is his signed selected card. Wunderbar! This really is the best and simplest folded card effect ever.

This stunning piece of magic by John Derris comes with a detailed routine, the simplest ever folding technique and a high quality silver money clip. All ready to present perhaps the best card effect in your programme.

When top world card magician Roy Walton saw it he said just four words – “A really great trick”

*Qualitative market tests with magicians were so positive that this effect is being sold as a limited edition of only 100 to afford some performance exclusivity. Certified.

Fours years ago I published the book KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) which enjoyed wide success both in Europe and the U.S. The book covered the critical value of presentation both in business and in magic performance, which I used at corporate shows worldwide for over ten years. There followed a series of over fifty KISS lectures to magic clubs throughout Europe in which I presented magic based on simplicity of method with the emphasis on presentation. Many of the routines became classics – “Staggering,” “Mirrorcle”, the “Fishbowl Production”, “Executive Brainwave” and others. Following constant requests I am now launching The KISS Range of Magic – new tricks, new packaging, new in depth instruction plus some of the established effects which meet the KISS criteria for magicians of all abilities. The official launch will take place at The Kent Guild of Magicians on 27th January at which two new effects will be shown for the first time. A new slick version of “Mirrorcle” based around the legend of Marilyn Monroe which was performed for ten years at the dinner tables of Europe and the launch of “Clipper” just about the smoothest vanish and recovery of a signed card you’ve ever seen. And some great new routines lined up for the future. Like “Welded Bliss”. More details? – Get in touch. 020 8467 7856.

Following hints and constant requests we are able to advise that the new model of the effect “Mirrorcle” in which a pen visibly penetrates a handbag mirror, is now available for magicians. New design, new presentation, new packaging, this stunning trick which utilises the famed Cornelius pen, has been a successful dinner table item of magic for over ten years but the new model has been created around the legend of Marilyn Monroe. This is the routine which I did as a guest at government dinner tables all over Europe for many years and developed a way of presenting the effect like a mini stage production. The new mirror case is in black leather and gold and comes with mirror, detailed instructions and a script of all the choreography involved in the presentation. You use your own Cornelius pen which research showed is owned by hundreds of magicians in the market following the launch of the pen through banknote of years ago. So if you have a discarded, little used Cornelius pen in the cupboard, this is your lucky day. Available direct from John Derris, Hockleys House, Lindenfield, Chislehurst, Kent, BR7 5RG Tel: 020 8467 7856 – £32.00 post free.

Today was published in the “IBM British Ring magazine “The Budget” my two page editorial spread “Come a Little Closer” This follows an invite from the editor Stephen Tucker to contribute on a regular basis and I asked for a gossip style presentation such as you find in the tabloid nationals. This to include, news, comment, opinion, tips, tricks, pictures and anecdotes that can be read magazine fashion a story at a time. Rather than an essay on the terrors of whatever.

Many magicians have called me and said a few encouraging things about the spread and thank you – so we decided to widen the coverage with a spill over into the Come a Little Closer blog.on this website. Here included are……

Welcome
This represents the rough number of members of the British Ring who can catch the news either in their magazine or here.

State of magic in the UK
I’m pretty positive about the number of entrepreneurial magicians who are setting up regular shows in pubs, cafés, town halls etc. Just the way Malini, Al Baker, and other yesterdays magicians did it a hundred years ago.Magic is alive and not bad.

Talent in a leather jacket
My earllier comment about Darcy Oakes brilliant canafdian talent who thrust his way into the finalists in the “Britains got Talent” show. He confirmed his potential with a full one hour illusion show from Blackpool on national tv just prior to launching on a nationwide tour. Looks like Dynamo but with the big stuff – walking through a brick and steel wal etc..

Top Tip from the Pros.
Tells how the top pros turn out week after week, groomed, sharp, every gimmick in its place doing up to three shows a day. There is a way.

A free Illusion
We’ve even incl’uded a stunning effect in which a coin is penetrated with a hat pin – one of the forty plus items that appeared in my latest book “Days of Wine and Magic” – the full routine and more to follow.Plus Funnies from the shows
Real comments from real magicians shows
(Magician) – – name the four seasons
(Kid) – Salt – mustard – vinegar – pepper.

Red Hot News
For any magician who owns the Cornelius Pen there is a great offer of a new Hollywood style close up effect called “Mirrorcle” in which a handbag mirror (Marylin Monroe? Mae West? Mickey Mouse?)

Today was published in the “IBM British Ring magazine “The Budget” my two page editorial spread “Come a Little Closer” This follows an invite from the editor Stephen Tucker to contribute on a regular basis and I asked for a gossip style presentation such as you find in the tabloid nationals. This to include, news, comment, opinion, tips, tricks, pictures and anecdotes that can be read magazine fashion a story at a time. Rather than an essay on the terrors of whatever.

Many magicians have called me and said a few encouraging things about the spread and thank you – so we decided to widen the coverage with a spill over into the Come a Little Closer blog.on this website. Here included are……

Welcome
This represents the rough number of members of the British Ring who can catch the news either in their magazine or here.

State of magic in the UK
I’m pretty positive about the number of entrepreneurial magicians who are setting up regular shows in pubs, cafés, town halls etc. Just the way Malini, Al Baker, and other yesterdays magicians did it a hundred years ago.Magic is alive and not bad.

Talent in a leather jacket
My earllier comment about Darcy Oakes brilliant canafdian talent who thrust his way into the finalists in the “Britains got Talent” show. He confirmed his potential with a full one hour illusion show from Blackpool on national tv just prior to launching on a nationwide tour. Looks like Dynamo but with the big stuff – walking through a brick and steel wal etc..

Top Tip from the Pros.
Tells how the top pros turn out week after week, groomed, sharp, every gimmick in its place doing up to three shows a day. There is a way.

A free Illusion
We’ve even incl’uded a stunning effect in which a coin is penetrated with a hat pin – one of the forty plus items that appeared in my latest book “Days of Wine and Magic” – the full routine and more to follow.

Red Hot News
For any magician who owns the Cornelius Pen there is a great offer of a new Hollywood style close up effect called “Mirrorcle” in which a handbag mirror (Marylin Monroe? Mae West? Mickey Mouse?)

Today was published in the “IBM British Ring magazine “The Budget” my two page editorial spread “Come a Little Closer” This follows an invite from the editor Stephen Tucker to contribute on a regular basis and I asked for a gossip style presentation such as you find in the tabloid nationals. This to include, news, comment, opinion, tips, tricks, pictures and anecdotes that can be read magazine fashion a story at a time. Rather than an essay on the terrors of whatever.

Many magicians have called me and said a few encouraging things about the spread and thank you – so we decided to widen the coverage with a spill over into the Come a Little Closer blog.on this website. Here included are……

Welcome
This represents the rough number of members of the British Ring who can catch the news either in their magazine or here.

State of magic in the UK
I’m pretty positive about the number of entrepreneurial magicians who are setting up regular shows in pubs, cafés, town halls etc. Just the way Malini, Al Baker, and other yesterdays magicians did it a hundred years ago.Magic is alive and not bad.

Talent in a leather jacket
My earllier comment about Darcy Oakes brilliant canafdian talent who thrust his way into the finalists in the “Britains got Talent” show. He confirmed his potential with a full one hour illusion show from Blackpool on national tv just prior to launching on a nationwide tour. Looks like Dynamo but with the big stuff – walking through a brick and steel wal etc..

Top Tip from the Pros.
Tells how the top pros turn out week after week, groomed, sharp, every gimmick in its place doing up to three shows a day. There is a way.

A free Illusion
We’ve even incl’uded a stunning effect in which a coin is penetrated with a hat pin – one of the forty plus items that appeared in my latest book “Days of Wine and Magic” – the full routine and more to follow.

Red Hot News
For any magician who owns the Cornelius Pen there is a great offer of a new Hollywood style close up effect called “Mirrorcle” in which a handbag mirror (Marylin Monroe? Mae West? Mickey Mouse?)

IT’S OVER FIFTEEN YEARS since I devised a ring and cord routine called “Staggering” and the climax was a move whereby the ring was thrown through the air to pass into a knot. It’s been my opener for hundreds of close-up performances at dinners and other social occasions throughout the world and has more than proved itself.

I also demonstrated “Staggering” hundreds of times at magic club lectures and conventions and sold the routine to many magicians. After the lecture everyone used to ask about the patter which is personal, funny, (didn’t work in Japan!) and very 1960’s. This brought comment from a few, young comedy magic colleagues who insisted I should write and use modern, observational humour rather than music hall left overs. But asTtop comedian Roy Hudd once said to me “If it’s funny – it’s funny! Three weeks ago I scored heavily with the same patter with an audience of twenty people at a close-up show. True. Ask organiser Chris Wood.

So remembering that patter and style of humour is a very personal thing that perhaps works for me, but not necessarily for you, here’s a gift. Following many requests, I am going to give you here an introduction to the script of one liners that I have used for “Staggering”.. If you’d like the full script with nearly thirty time- tested one liners , drop me a line and I’ll send it to you free of charge. No strings. They are all written around the “Staggering” effect but are adaptable to all kinds of magic routines.

Staggering One Liners

(Show big 2” ring – address remarks to a lady)
This is my grandfather’s wedding ring.
I know it’s big but he came from a big family.

My grandfather…..a lovely man,
Didn’t smoke. Didn’t drink. Made all his own dresses.

And in his old age, he presented this ring to my father.

And my father….on his death bed….sold it to me.
I’m no fool….I gave him a cheque.

Would you like to examine the ring.
Not too much…..I’ve got a living to make.

I’VE JUST SEEN A REVIEW OF MY BOOK “Days of Wine and Magic” by an American magician and professional reviewer called Jeff Stone. The book made hardly any rating at all and in a kindly way he condemned it as lacking in detail and information and not worth the $40 price tag. He describes it as a “scratch book of ideas and jottings”without back up detail of how to do the effects and moves.

Well of course…he’s absolutely right.

In concept and description we said that this was a book for the average club magician not the specialist and was based on “notations of ideas, thoughts and presentations seen over the past years, for personal development”. The way that Avis, Elmsley, Vernon and others used to make notes after group sessions If I had steered the reader through move by move detail, ready to drop into his programme, it would not be a memoir that preserves ideas forever for historical and personal development later.

Like Koran’s finish to his John Scarne ball routine, page 58, whereby the presentation surface, a red silk, changes instantly to a red billiard ball – instantly!. Although fifty years old this gimmick ball can sometimes be found today, often turning up in the estates of older magicians…like myself. I also said that I was told that Stevens Magic were producing the item, something the reviewer said was not in Stevens lists. But a colleague has in fact purchased the ball from them.

And I know of two magicians who have run down this ancient clockwork ball and are now using it in a sensational finish to their routine. That’s what the book is all about….ideas that lead to original routines, the essence of good magic.

I also assumed the reader was already equipped with basic magic skills and knowledge without the need of a detailed description of how to switch a coin and other subterfuges . And yes I had not realised the confusion I might have caused in using such words as “chemist” and “lip salv” much as I am similarly confused sometimes at words like “sidewalk” and “elevator”. Guilty.

I’m more of a presentation man that a technician, a point made by Roy Walton in his foreword together with the terms of reference of the whole book. But the ideas are good and I have used many of them in performance but maybe my powers of description are waning. Some of the ideas included are blinders… the haunted banknote on the handkerchief in mix and mingle (ie pre dinner cocktail gathering!), salute to John Ramsay (an idol for the over sixties) and the visible coin through ring (a favourite with Pat Page). I’ve done them for ages and know they work in performance conditions

If nothing else perhaps the book has given contemporary magicians an idea of what magic life was like a half century ago. Before the days of TV magic specials, extravaganzas, computers and special effects. When it was just you, the audience and the skill you held in your hands.

A number of very respected names in magic have said nice things about the book – yes they’re friends but they’ve always spoken the truth even when it hurts. So maybe I should put together a dvd showing performance and detailed handling of the best of “Days of Wine and Magic”. And written across the sleeve the words “Inspired by Jeff Stone”

I have known Michael Vincent since he had an Afro haircut and used to hang out at Alan Alan’s magic shop in Bloomsbury. He was always good with cards, enthusiastic, polite and handled himself very well but many of us felt that his patter lacked fire and colour. It was descriptive like a magic catalogue, more like an ecclesiastical homily “Magic is the truth that will link the brotherhood of man” kind of thing. Sarcastic Bobby Bernard remarked at the time “If I wanted a sermon I’d have gone to a church!”

But what he did have was tenacity and commitment. Beyond the taunts of other magician’s. Despite the occasional ethnic barbs from lubricated banquet audiences – “Here comes the old black magic”. He pushed on relentlessly, learning, practising, performing, observing the stars of magic and their methods. Alone in his belief.

Until today.

Today I performed in a close-up show alongside a successful looking fifty year-old conjurer. Executive smart, immaculately groomed, a worldly way with words that revealed experience and confidence. An at ease celebrity magician who engaged totally with his audience rather than blandly seeking their approval of his digital skill. Today I was looking at Michael Vincent 2014, one of the top five professional magicians in Britain today. Top in the art of magic. Top in entertainment.

And not just my view. The author of a number of academic, internationally acclaimed books on the art. Invitations to perform in all parts of the globe induced by an ethereal word of mouth reputation. Invitations from various government bodies like China to speak and demonstrate his magic. Invitations from wealthy amateur magicians to spend time in their glorious hideaways and give private demonstrations. All very reminiscent of the way the magic greats of a hundred years ago were feted and invited to exclusively show their special performance.

And Michael Vincent’s attitude today is very much like that enjoyed by the masters of the past – the Malinis, the Leipzigs, the Vernons, the Millers and others. Many gave total commitment to magic and reaped a lifestyle that submerged them in their passion and Vincent is also a man of magic who has discovered an inner satisfaction.

His programme of magic has widened greatly beyond his initial passion for the pasteboards. I saw his performance where he seamlessly blended a series of rope effects with manipulation and faked gimmicks into a very professional presentation. Dropping effortlessly into a demonstration of the ways of the three card hucksters without patronising his audience. And then presenting Slydini’s knotted handkerchiefs routine, as smooth as the originator. Understandable when you learn that he had personal tuition from Slydini in New York many years ago.
The complete magician. Like master illusionist Dante in the early part of the last century, he can create a magic menu with a variety of ingredients – sleight of hand, subtlety, fakes or whatever. Michael Vincent is a man who has recaptured the true essence of entertaining with magic, so welcome in today’s supermarket of chop cup, card in wallet and sponge balls.

But into this magic nirvana he has achieved over many years – a lightning bolt has struck. He has suddenly gone completely deaf in one ear.

But the tenacity that propelled him to magical heights has been directed to this latest setback. Fitted with an invisible hearing aid solves part of the problem coupled with careful editing of his performance to avoid difficult words and learning the basics of lip reading to see the visual difference between h-e-a-r-t-s and d-i-a-m-o-n-d-s.

It speaks well of his character when I tell you I didn’t learn he was deaf until after his performance at this recent close-up show where we both appeared. It is clearly the same kind of fortitude that has made him one of our finest magicians.

Who is John Derris?

JOHN DERRIS has been performing magic since he won several talent shows as a young boy. During his National Service with the R.A.F. he toured with a service revue "Revel And Fun" and appeared in a number of shows and stage plays.

On returning to civilian life he decided to continue his career in advertising. For many years he ran his own international advertising agency and on retirement returned to magic and performed for many of his clients in all parts of the world - and has even performed in a TV celebration with Whitney Houston in Istanbul!

Today he is a full time professional magician and has performed at St. James's Palace, The House of Lords, Castle Howard, Wardour Castle, Claridges, The Dorchester and many other international and prestigious venues.